Will the efforts of employees at the Ford Blanquefort plant be sufficient to prevent closure? The Belgian industrialist Punch Powerglide, which took over at the beginning of 2013 the former GM factory in Strasbourg, has been on the run for several months to take Ford’s in the northern suburbs of Bordeaux. For weeks, the challenge for the buyer is to lower the wage costs of a gearbox plant, which still employs 850 people but plans to run with less than half.
Freezing wages
This Tuesday, in general meeting, the employees accepted the agreement negotiated between the unions and the management of Punch: freeze of three years wages, modulation of working time and abandonment of 3 days of RTT. “We were finally able to accept but we wanted to find this deal to put pressure on Ford. Now the buyer and the state will turn to Ford, which has no reason not to sell its factory to Punch, “says Gilles Lambersend CGT secretary of the works council.
State pressure
Not sure, however, that this is enough, even if Bruno Le Maire calls himself Jim Hackett , the big boss of Ford as it was evoked. The manufacturer has for weeks been subject to very strong pressure from the State that is driving the case, via Jean-Pierre Floris, Mr. Industrie de Bercy, unions but also communities.
The American manufacturer, which had sold its plant in 2009, before being forced to take it back , now favors a pure and simple closure. It continues to argue that its plan for safeguarding employment is better for employees in view of the “hitherto very uncertain nature of business plan proposed by the buyer, “says Ford. The government’s efforts were to convince the American manufacturer to subcontract the workload to its former factory. The outcome could take place tomorrow, Thursday, on the occasion of a new central committee. The PES term is in any case scheduled for December 18th.